Hard drive bay widening: The right wall was removed and shifted toward the right allowing enough space to suspend all drives with elastic.

Front muffle: A piece of MDF wood offset from the front intake grill stops direct sound escaping from the front, while letting air around its sides.

Weight dampened side and top panels with peel and stick tiles; the panels are now 3-4 times heavier, and make a "thud" rather than a "clang" when knocked on from outside. Probably the most effective and cheapest mods in silencing this case.

I wonder if this would work: Put the HD upward at the bottom of the case and have air entering the case from the bottom, blocking the direct noise path from the user. The mid-intake fan would blow directly on a passive video card above.

Case ready to be painted, rear fan grill cut out with shears and grinded smooth.

Note the PSU fan hole on the bottom of the case,

Masked for pinstriping, didn't turn out good so I painted over in black anyways.

Painting...

Paint complete: about 3.5 coats of satin Krylon black.

Custom 120mm fan bracket: made with sheet metal and riveted on (later scrapped due to video card clearance issue).

Thumbscrews: I liked how the chrome screws on black looks.

Painted case: I bet even without a front grill it looks better than an Antec DF-85.

Rear fan hole U-Channeled

Bottom PSU vent: The acrylic frame awaits some filter material, making for a sliding removable filter.

Case is lifted off the ground using bottle caps (a bit high because it sits on soft carpet)

Top fan soft mounted using elastic: this fan aids so much with CPU cooling as heat rises

Like my under-hood pinstripe? The fan is completely decoupled from the case.

I Even used grommets to make the holes "softer" and smaller,

Final case shot

The buildHard drive suspension, ever thought it could be done in a 300? Well it can in a 302!

PSU Installed, see how the cable management holes help
Motherboard installed, wires in place,

Wired up: The 120mm mid-mount fan aligns nicely with the passive video card, though its clearance is too tight against the PCI-E power wire and too tight to soft mount .

The MDF is attached using long screws that screw into the holes that originally held the grill to the bezel. It is offset along the screw's length, I didn't screw it all the way down.

The U channel lining is door edge trim (I got at Canadian Tire), used on the edge of car doors. I used it to line the fan and the motherboard cutouts. Its very thick and not easy to maneuver, I'd recommend looking for something thinner.

I can't say just yet, I've still to install my fan controller (running loud atm on Gigabyte's smart fan control), whenever I get the time that is....
All components being same I don't see why it would be nearly as quiet as the Solo.

This mod really inspired me to something similar to the 300 I have laying around. I bought it from a kid who didn't properly underline the botched paint job he had done on the case, so it is aesthetically unusable for me.

Would you mind telling me how you prepped the case before painting it? Sanding, priming and so on.

_________________www.ITXGamer.com-A site dedicated solely to computers using the mini-ITX platform. If you prefer small and neat, in stead of huge and obtrusive, this is the place to be!

One sweet mdofication! I really envy you as you have work space where you can make such things true. I have first generation 300 without hole cut for motherboard tray for back plate installation. Now I like how you have done work paying attention all the little steps and details... only thing bother's me: Blue legs on gorgeous black case?! I know its just me First rate job!

_________________If seeing is believing, how can blind person believe in anything?Maturity is just not experience in life but also ability to make compromises.

Would you mind telling me how you prepped the case before painting it? Sanding, priming and so on.

I prepped the case by giving the bare metal a light sand with a 120 grit sanding sponge. I de-riveted all the panels to ensure proper paint distribution. I used Krylon black (non-gloss) paint to paint the interior, about 3 coats, no primer.

Quote:

only thing bother's me: Blue legs on gorgeous black case?! I know its just me

I know it looks odd, I forgot to paint those with the rest of the case. It sits on the carpet beside my desk so I don't see it anyways.

It would be nice to see others' ideas in silencing Antec's hundred series.

I love my 300 as well, but it took a little bit of work to make it quiet. Mainly adding dampening to the chassis (Peel & Seal or bitumen mat), panels and fan housing (for the 140mm top fan). I also suspended my 150gb Velociraptor and used some thin foam wedged between the 5.25" cage and the DVD-ROM.

I've done a little more cable management since then, but I'm not ambitious enough to cut any holes or derivet and paint.

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